


There Goes the Neighborhood Redux

by wheel_pen



Series: Daisy [25]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Naughtiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:52:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy tends to Damon after Pearl gouges out his eyes; Daisy helps Caroline avoid a pity-party on her double date with Matt and Stefan/Elena; the gathering is crashed by a mysterious visitor. “So what we need are… vampire ninjas.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Goes the Neighborhood Redux

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Daisy, my original character, moved to Mystic Falls about a year ago. There is something special about her.
> 
> 2\. This series begins with the first season of the TV show and completely diverges about halfway through the first season. Facts revealed later on the show might not make it into this series.
> 
> 3\. Underage warning: This series may contain human or human-like teenagers, in high school, in sexual situations.
> 
> 4\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate being able to play in this universe.

            “Oh, and _thanks_ , by the way, for saving me from getting my eyes gouged out,” Damon said, deeply sarcastic. He peeled the blood-encrusted dishtowel off his face and opened his eyes experimentally, wincing in the bright light of the kitchen.

            “You’re a big boy, you can take it,” I told him, my tone nonetheless coddling as I used a warm, damp cloth to dab the dried blood away from his eyelids and cheeks. “Anyway, I didn’t realize Pearl was going to show up here and threaten you. You should have mentioned her megalomaniacal inclinations.”

            “Well, I thought she and Anna were leaving town,” he protested. “I mean, J---s, who knew the witches were gonna do such a sloppy job sealing the tomb back up?”

            “Yeah, about that…”

            His eyes popped open to stare at me. “You _knew_ they messed up the spell? Oh, of _course_ you did,” he snapped. “You just didn’t bother to tell anyone!”

            “They had to break the seal to let Stefan out,” I reminded him. “They tried to put it back, but—“

            “Yeah, got that part.” Nonetheless he closed his eyes and leaned towards me again so I could continue washing his face. “You know when people say they have communication problems in their relationship?”

            “This isn’t what they’re referring to,” I noted dryly.

            “Can’t I just get mad at you because I thought you were flirting with the milkman?” he complained, but the anger was gone from his tone. “Why do I have to be mad at you because you didn’t tell me about two dozen bloodthirsty vampires streaming out of a hole in the ground like it’s a clown car?”

            “There are no milkmen anymore,” I informed him pertly. “And, not that I’m big into ‘I told you so,’ but— _who_ insisted on opening the tomb to begin with?”

            “Um… Anna?” he tried.

            “Against my explicit and repeated advice,” I went on, “including various portents of death and destruction.”

            “You didn’t mention my eyes getting gouged out,” which I had to admit was true.

            I finished cleaning his face. “Feel better?”

            He blinked a few times and I slapped away the hand he was reaching up to rub his eyes with. “I guess,” he conceded ungraciously. “Took you long enough to get here, though.”

            “Your text message was unintelligible,” I reminded him.

            “I was _blind_ when I typed it!” He was quiet for a moment and I started to clean up the mess. “So, problem,” he began. “Pearl is about five hundred fifty years old. And seniority rules in the vampire world. How are us _good_ vampires supposed to defeat her?”

            “Well, I can think of several options off the top of my head,” I speculated.

            “Could you think of them while bringing me some of Stefan’s porcupine blood?” Damon asked, nodding towards the fridge. “Unless _you_ would like to feed me some more?” he hinted.

            I opened the fridge and pulled out a gruesome bottle of blood. “I think you’ve had enough for right now,” I decided, handing him the bottle.

            “Yum,” he remarked sarcastically, knocking back some of the blood.

            “You could befriend an even older vampire,” I started to list.

            “Let’s delegate that to Stefan,” Damon suggested. “Making new friends isn’t my strong suit.”

            No kidding. “You could convince someone she trusts to turn traitor and catch her unawares,” I went on. “You could get an assist from modern technology.”

            “Wooden bullets?” he guessed. His tone was not encouraging. “Compressed-air stake shooter?”

            “It’s not that you _can’t_ kill her,” I reminded him. “It’s just harder to do so in a face-to-face confrontation. Stealth and subterfuge would be more appropriate methods.”

            “So what we need,” he surmised, “are… vampire ninjas.”

            “A rare breed,” I agreed dryly.

            “The double shot of awesomeness often causes them to spontaneously combust,” he nodded sagely.

            “You might just get lucky and stake her from behind,” I added, perhaps too optimistically.

            His expression said he agreed with the ‘too optimistic’ part. “She’ll be back,” he sighed. I nodded. That much was certain. What was uncertain was how much I was willing to do to prevent it.

            “She offered to help me find Katherine,” Damon said suddenly.

            When I turned to look at him he was gazing up at me with an uncertain expression, as though he wasn’t sure he should have said that. “You said they were good friends,” I remarked, turning back to the sink, “so maybe she’s counting on Katherine contacting her, or maybe she could tell you some of her favorite places—“

            “I told her I wasn’t interested.”

            I paused what I was doing. “In seeing Katherine?”

            “Yeah.”

            Slowly I turned around to look at him. “And is that true?” I asked curiously.

            Damon shrugged, gazing intently at the floor. “I don’t want… I’m not interested,” he decided firmly, meeting my gaze. “Not like I was before.”

            “Maybe you’d like to see her again for some closure?” I suggested.

            “I’d like to close a casket lid on her decomposing body,” he said, which I took as a yes. “But I wouldn’t really _look_ for her.”

            I smiled at him, cheered by this decision, but I warned myself not to put too much stock in it. With all the supernatural activity in Mystic Falls these days, I had a feeling Katherine would show up again whether anyone wanted to see her or not.

 

            Stefan and Elena were on a double-date with Matt and Caroline—Matt, who was Elena’s former flame with a soft spot in his heart for her still, and Caroline, who was Elena’s close friend but also ragingly insecure and cripplingly jealous of her. Meanwhile, Damon—Stefan’s older brother and alleged legal guardian—was at the bar in the same restaurant the teenagers were playing pool in, doing shots with Matt’s cougartown mom, Kelly, and Elena’s aunt (and legal guardian), Jenna.

            It was kind of a surreal scene that I walked into, and I only added to it—the underage girlfriend of the person most people couldn’t stand, even those who _didn’t_ know he was a homicidal vampire.

            I slipped past Stefan and Elena, not wanting to draw their attention, and headed for the bar. Bill the bartender saw me and cleared his throat discreetly, the signal for Damon to stop discussing body shots with Kelly and step back a few inches from her. Bill was sweet that way.

            “Hi, baby,” I greeted Damon, giving him a kiss as though his outrageous flirting with another woman right in front of me didn’t bother me. Which it didn’t. I knew where he was going tonight.

            “Hi, baby back,” he replied with tipsy pleasure, his hands moving to squeeze my rear end.

            I caught them before they could reach their goal and turned smoothly in his arms, facing his two drinking partners. “Good evening, Mrs. Donovan, Ms. Sommers,” I greeted cheerfully.

            Elena’s aunt grimaced as though she’d hoped I wouldn’t recognize her; Kelly Donovan, however, gave me the frank and slightly mystified look of the dissolute. “G-d, you just made me feel really old,” she remarked with resignation. “Gimme another shot,” she told Bill.

            “The years come off as the shots go down,” Damon said archly, ordering another one himself.

            “Mmm, other things, too,” Kelly purred, and yes, she _was_ flirting with my boyfriend, right over my shoulder.

            “How’s your job search going?” I asked, in a conversational and not catty way. As she started to answer with a pessimistic shrug, I picked a cherry up out of the bowl on the bar and popped the whole thing into my mouth, stem and all. I knew I had Damon’s complete attention at that point. A moment later I produced the stem again—tied in a neat knot. He didn’t even bother _pretending_ to be interested in Kelly’s answer.

            “Time to go!” he announced, subtlety clearly a low priority. He grabbed my hand and pulled me back through the restaurant towards the door.

            Of course, he couldn’t ignore Stefan and Elena, as much as they were trying to ignore _him_. “You kids have a good time,” he told the group, and not in a quiet voice. Did I mention that Damon was, for all intents and purposes, Caroline’s abusive ex-boyfriend? “But safety first!” he warned. “You just get into that drawer by the nightstand if you need anything.” Then he sauntered off, leaving Stefan pale with horror, Elena beet red with embarrassment, Caroline a nauseous green, and Matt still trying to put all the pieces together with limited information.

 

            It was some time before the two couples dared to return to the boarding house. Probably wise on their parts, as even non-vampire hearing would’ve noticed what we were up to earlier. We were taking a break at the moment, though, and I idly eavesdropped on the others out in the yard through Damon’s open window. Stefan was being a truly decent guy, sharing his prized vintage car with Matt and even pretending he didn’t know how to make it run so Matt could help him out.

            “Stefan is just so… _good_ ,” I marveled, closing the window.

            Damon made a noise of protest from where he was kissing his way down my spine. “Funny, you were just saying that about _me_.”

            I grinned. “Different context,” I assured him, turning on the windowseat to face him. “If I had a brother, I would like it to be Stefan.”

            Damon nibbled on my knee. “Hmm, then you’d be my sister,” he observed. “Kinky!”

            As I leaned back I happened to glance out the window and saw something that made me stop Damon’s progress. “Uh-oh.”

            “What?”

            I opened the window again and strained to hear what Elena and Caroline were talking about across the yard by the stone fence, their body language stiff and uncomfortable.

            Damon was not sympathetic. “Caroline is _so_ insecure,” he judged. “It’s really boring.”

            “Who told her she was shallow, under compulsion?” I hissed back at him pointedly.

            “Please. It was broken when I picked it up,” he claimed, which was probably true.

            I watched Elena walk away, unsatisfied, while Caroline stayed by the fence. “I better go down there,” I decided, standing.

            “Oh, no no no,” Damon protested, as I started to get dressed. “Let them deal with their own problems for one night.”

            “Like you _ever_ want to help with their problems,” I laughed. “I’ll only be a few minutes, I promise. Besides, I want to get a snack anyway.”

            He flopped down on the bed with an overdramatic sigh. “You’re _such_ a tease.”

            I ignored this and left the bedroom, making my way down the stairs and across the yard to Caroline’s small, lonely figure by the stone fence. “Hi, Caroline.”

            “Oh. Hi, Daisy.” It was hard for her to figure out exactly how to relate to me, especially now that I was dating Damon. Not that she wanted him back—or wanted to see him hurt—but there was something about seeing him treat _me_ better that struck a nerve. But Caroline had a lot of nerves to strike.

            “I guess the date’s not going well, huh?” I opened. “Considering the daters have split into different groups.”

            “The others are happier without me,” she muttered bitterly, staring out across the driveway to the forest beyond.

            “Do you really think that?” I asked curiously.

            “Well, Matt and Elena can stroll down memory lane without me there making things awkward,” she replied sarcastically.

            “I think that would be awfully rude to Stefan,” I pointed out.

            “Stefan is inhumanly tolerant.”

            I smiled a little at her choice of words. “You know what really irritates me?” I asked rhetorically. “The way Damon talks about Katherine all the time.”

            Caroline’s gaze flickered over to me, momentarily roused from her self-pity. “Katherine. That’s that girl both he and Stefan dated, right?”

            I nodded. “Stefan’s moved on. Damon… finds it more difficult.”

            “He seems to really like you,” she observed.

            “He does,” I agreed. “But he was so wrapped up in Katherine for so long… Sometimes it’s like, everything we do, he and Katherine did together first.”

            “I know _exactly_ what you mean,” Caroline said excitedly, turning to me. “Like, Matt says going to the movies is too expensive, and I’m like, but the matinee ticket is only six bucks! And he’s like, but the popcorn and soda and candy is so expensive!” I nodded as she chattered. “And I’m like, but I _never_ get food at the theater, it all has too much fat and sugar, and he’s like—OH, like it never occurred to him you didn’t have to get those, and then he just says, ‘Elena always liked to have them.’”

            “Well you’re not Elena,” I finished.

            “Exactly,” she agreed.

            “But I always have to ask myself,” I continued leadingly, “who’s he with _now_?”

            Caroline shrugged as though she didn’t find this very comforting. “Elena’s taken,” she pointed out glumly. She seemed determined to feel bad.

            “Matt’s a good guy,” I told her. “Sure, Elena made a big impression on him. But that’s over now. It wasn’t meant to be. They weren’t right for each other.”

            “You think I’m right for Matt?” she asked.

            “I think the question is, is Matt right for _you_?” I countered. “Does he treat you right? Does he respect you, show that he’s thinking of you? Everyone makes mistakes,” I cautioned, “but overall…”

            “Yeah, I think he does,” she agreed slowly.

            “Maybe Elena came first,” I added, “but what’s more important is who comes _last_.”

            “I say the lady always comes first,” Damon quipped, emerging from the shadows, “but the etiquette gets more complicated with threesomes.”

            “You’re such a gentleman,” I told him, rolling my eyes. He was wearing jeans and his leather jacket—no shoes, no shirt. We were lucky he’d even put in _that_ much effort. “Anyway,” I said to Caroline, who was trying to keep a wary eye on Damon without actually acknowledging him, “maybe you should go back and see what Matt’s up to. Can’t make much of an impression if you aren’t there.”

            “Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed with determination. “Thanks, Daisy. I feel a lot better.” I grabbed Damon’s hand and squeezed it before he could say something rude and ruin all my work. Caroline headed back towards the garage, where it sounded like the boys had gotten the car running.

            “G-d, she _is_ so second-best to Elena,” Damon opined meanly. Fortunately Caroline was out of earshot. “Or even farther down. I don’t understand how anyone puts up with her.” Sensitivity was not one of Damon’s strong suits. At least in some cases. He slid a glance over to me. “Do I really talk about Katherine that much?” Obviously he’d been eavesdropping on us for a while.

            “Less than you used to,” I judged. I put my arms around his neck. “It doesn’t make me feel insecure, though,” I assured him with a smile.

            “Is there _anything_ that makes you feel insecure?” he wanted to know, pulling me closer.

            “I like to keep those things to myself.”

            “There’s a surprise.” He leaned down to kiss me but we were interrupted by Stefan’s red sports car rolling past, honking at us.

            “Get a room,” Stefan called playfully out the window. Damon gave him the finger and I laughed.

            “Come on,” I said, pulling Damon back towards the house. “Let’s take that advice.”

 

            Stefan generously let Matt and Caroline take the car for a spin; he would have _given_ it to Matt if he’d thought that would help him out, I’m sure. One hundred and fifty years of perspective—not to mention prudent investments—tended to make one more generous with possessions. Or, if one were Damon, careless, but that was a different story.

            By the time the other couple returned it was getting late and the debate began over whether to call it a night or do one more thing, like a board game. Damon chuckled at my shudder in response to that suggestion, even though I wasn’t even in the same room as the others. “Maybe we could find some kind of naughty board—“ He stopped talking when I suddenly tensed and ran to the window, scanning the yard. “What?”

            I shook my head and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the hall with the others. “I’ve got a suggestion!” I announced brightly, butting in. “Let’s check out the basement. It’s really cool.”

            “Um, okay,” Elena agreed, giving me a questioning look. “Yeah, there’s a lot of, um—“

            “Historical artifacts,” Stefan supplied, also mystified but playing along.

            This was not very appealing to Caroline, but then Matt said he would go, and no way was she letting him go somewhere with Elena and _not_ her. “This way,” Elena directed, opening the door to the cellar. Stefan and Damon realized they should hang back, so only four of us descended into the dim and musty basement. I shut the door after us.

            “Wow, this is a total dungeon,” Matt commented, impressed.

            “It’s creepy,” Caroline complained, sticking close to him. “I feel like I’ve been here before,” she added with a shiver.

            “Head down that way,” I suggested to them. “It’s very private.”

            “What’s going on?” Elena hissed at me, pulling me aside.

            “I thought I saw something outside,” I whispered back. “Did anything weird happen tonight?”

            Her expression was stricken. “At the restaurant, this man I’d never seen before called me Katherine,” she confessed. Interesting. Apparently Pearl wasn’t keeping the tomb vampires under tight control. Whether that was intentional or not remained to be seen.

            “Hey, what’s this light here?” Matt called from down the hall. Giving each other ‘we’ll talk later’ looks, Elena and I hurried to join him and Caroline.

            They were peering into the room where the vervain was grown. “Oh, that’s just our little growth chamber,” I explained off-hand. “Just some herbs.”

            A crooked smile appeared on Matt’s face. “ _Herbs?_ ”

            “Not _that_ kind,” Elena insisted, forcing herself to laugh. “They’re for cooking!”

            I went the opposite direction, nodding at Matt. “That’s how we keep Damon so mellow,” I deadpanned.

            There were some thumps from upstairs. “Uh, did you hear that?” Matt asked.

            “No,” said Elena.

            “What?” I asked in confusion.

            “ _I_ heard something,” Caroline agreed.

            More thumps. “Where did Stefan go?” said Matt, looking around.

            “Bathroom,” replied Elena.

            “Maybe we should go back upstairs,” Matt suggested suspiciously.

            “I agree,” insisted Caroline. “It’s creepy down here.”

            More thumps. Neither Elena nor I moved. “I’m gonna see what’s going on up there,” Matt declared, giving us a look that said we women were strange and inexplicable in our behavior.

            “Um, actually there’s a really cool—“ Elena tried, pointing away from the stairs, but Matt was already gently pushing past her, with Caroline trotting after him, clinging to his hand. We all climbed the stairs slowly, not sure what we’d walk into.

            “Oh my G-d!” Caroline exclaimed. The living room was a mess, with a broken window, toppled furniture, scattered books, and Stefan standing in the middle looking very guilty. With a large red stain on his shirt that hadn’t been there before.

            “Is that blood?” Matt asked him in concern.

            “No,” Stefan replied, patently false. “I mean, it’s not mine.”

            “What happened in here?” Elena had to ask. She swayed like she wanted to run to Stefan’s side but resisted the impulse, too uncertain of the situation.

            Stefan took a deep breath. “Um, well—“

            “Hey, you girls wanna see what crow looks like after it’s crashed through a window?” Damon taunted, popping up from behind the couch with a shapeless black thing in his hand.

            Caroline screamed and buried her face in Matt’s chest. “Not cool, man,” he chided Damon, comforting her. Elena grimaced in disgust and I raised an eyebrow.

            Damon flung the remains carelessly on the fire, where they sent a mini-fireball up through the chimney. “Stefan tried to heal it by laying on hands,” he claimed obnoxiously, “but alas…”

            “It flew around first, really made a mess,” Stefan elaborated, sounding reasonably sincere.

            Elena gave in and ran to him. “Are you okay?”

            He held her off to the side. “Careful of the—“ he warned, indicating the stain on his shirt.

            “What’s that _flu_ that birds get?” Damon speculated.

            “Bird flu,” I informed him dryly.

            “That’s the one,” he agreed. “Maybe that’s what it had.” He made an expression of fake horror. “Oh my G-d! What if we’re all contaminated? We’ll all have to be quarantined here! Good thing we had that extra-large hot tub installed.”

            “Um, sorry,” Stefan said to Matt and Caroline, though whether about the alleged bird or Damon wasn’t clear.

            “It’s okay, man,” Matt assured him. “Hey, thanks for letting me drive your car. It was fantastic.”

            “You’re welcome,” Stefan replied, his smile genuine. He started to step towards them and Caroline squeaked.

            “I don’t like blood,” she said, hiding her face from him.

            “G-d, what do you _do_ every month?” Damon asked tastelessly, which drew chides from a number of people.

            “I’ll show you out,” Elena offered quickly.

            Meanwhile I scooted closer to the couch and peered behind it to see the dead body of a vampire woman, her skin turning greenish. She was missing a large chunk of her dark hair, which Damon had apparently ripped off to use as his ‘crow’ prop.

            “Bird, huh?” I said dryly as he gave me a wicked grin.

            “You shoulda seen the one that got away,” he added darkly.

            Elena fairly stomped back into the room. “Okay, they’re gone. _What_ is going on?”

            “Maybe one of us should follow them home,” Stefan suggested to Damon instead.

            “Good idea,” Damon mocked. “Which of us would be less creepy to see in the rear view mirror?” It was, for once, somewhat of a toss-up.

            “I think they’ll be fine,” I opined.

            “Stefan,” Elena insisted.

            “Are you gonna help me with this?” Damon complained, pointing to the body concealed behind the couch. “You know Daisy doesn’t like to get dirty. Except metaphorically,” he added after a beat.

            Stefan gave him a look and drew Elena out of the room, trying to persuade her to end their normal-ish day on a high-ish note and not worry about this mess until tomorrow. Meanwhile, Damon patted down the corpse, looking for any items of interest. “Tomb vampires?” I guessed of the intruders.

            “Yup. One less of those now,” he noted dispassionately.

            “You tell Stefan about them yet?”

            “I was planning to.”

            I shook my head. “I don’t think they were acting under Pearl’s orders,” I decided. “This is far too sloppy for her.”

            “Pearl?” Stefan repeated in surprise, reentering the room without Elena. He gave Damon a hard look.

            “Well, I’ll go get the vacuum,” I announced, removing myself from _that_ sticky situation.


End file.
